They didn’t mean to collect a parade. It just happened.
By Third Bell the eight of them couldn’t cross the east corridor without accruing a polite tail of uniforms - first years with notebooks cocked like ears, second years pretending they weren’t listening, a librarian rolling past and absolutely listening. Arashi kept walking like he was late to a gala. Hikari slowed at every question, then sped up because questions multiplied near her like pigeons. Keahi smiled at them and glared at handrails. Esen waved like a politician on a very small campaign.
"Examples, not exhibits" Lynea reminded under her breath.
"Exhibits with office hours" Esen amended, pleased.
The Hall of Petals opened into the long nave where light fell in clean bars. Banners hung still. The mosaic spiral kept its opinions to itself. Raizen stifled a yawn large enough to count as weather.
"Do not nap vertical" Hikari murmured, elbowing him. "It looks like fainting."
They didn’t see the four until the crowd went quiet in a way that had nothing to do with bell schedules.
Second-years slid out of a side corridor and took space like they had bought it. Their badges carried the longer star cradled by the up-crescent - a year of decisions behind them, a weight to prove it. At their front walked a boy a little taller than Arashi, long dark-brown hair a mess that had chosen itself, a lacquered fan flicking open and shut like punctuation. His eyes didn’t scan so much as dismiss.
On his right, a slim figure with shock-white hair and a blade of a mouth, hands in pockets, slouch calculated. On his left, a mountain assembled from metal - right arm all bright prosthetic from shoulder to fingertip, left rebuilt from elbow down, both shins sculpted steel from knee to boot, servos humming a polite menace. Behind them, a bright blonde girl in slate uniform the color of mercy, the healer’s badge catching every stray light. Iris. People said she’d been sent back from the front line for being "useless" - the word had traveled fast and ugly. She kept her gaze soft and down, like she was trying not to make enemies of everyone’s opinions at once. The healer from the exam.
Keita’s fan clicked shut. "Leashes" he said, as if greeting pets. "I see your tail grew."
The words were aimed at the normal students. The corridor chilled by a degree. The librarian’s cart squeaked like it wished it could reverse.
Esen stepped from their line before anyone told him not to. "You talk like people are furniture" he said, lightly but not at all light. "Weird, because you’re standing on the same floor."
Keita smiled. It was a beautiful, empty expression. "What are you" he asked without looking, "their mascot?"
He reached up and set his hand going forward toward Esen’s face in a beginning of a slap.
The hand did not arrive.
Raizen had moved without drama. A simple fast step, a clean angle. His fingers closed around Keita’s wrist with the kind of precision that looks like luck until you learn it isn’t. No squeeze. No show. He just set the hand in the air where it could do nothing and let silence try to get brave.
Keita glanced down at the grip, then up, calculating whether this had become a scene yet.
"Don’t touch him" Raizen said. His voice was the temperature of the steel under cloud. "If you want spectacle, there’s an arena for that."
Metal-arms lifted his chin a millimeter. White-hair’s mouth curled, amused. Iris flinched so slightly it looked like a breath.
Keita’s fan opened with his free hand - a polite flower. "Adorable" he said. His tone tilted contemptuous without having to lean. "First-years collect strays, then think they’ve adopted the city. You confuse applause with respect."
A murmur rolled behind the eight. Hikari’s fingers had already gone to Raizen’s elbow and stopped there, not pulling, just remembering it.
Esen grinned despite himself. "You confuse your fan with a personality."
White-hair laughed once, short. Keita’s eyes never left Raizen’s. "Let go" he said.
Raizen did. The corridor exhaled like it had just realized it was a corridor. Keita let the wrist drop by an inch more than necessary, a petty calculus.
Arashi stepped forward before the next insult learned how to speak. He was smiling without heat. "We can settle vocabulary" he said, urbane, "or settle form."
Lynea nodded once, permission disguised as paperwork. Keahi’s shoulders had gone still in that way that meant she could stand for an hour if needed.
Raizen didn’t look back. He didn’t look at the crowd. He set his badge with a fingertip, as if reminding it which way north was, and spoke to Keita like it was just them under a rain that hadn’t started yet.
"One week" he said. "Formal 4 on 4. The arena. Second Bell."
Keita’s fan stopped. A debate flickered behind his gaze - show now, or show later. Later let him collect a crowd. Later let him plan contempt.
Metal-shin rolled his wrist in impossible angles and the servos sang. "At least make it interesting" he said.
White-hair tipped his chin toward Hikari, then to Keahi, then to Arashi, as if sorting pieces on a board. "We were wondering when you’d stop teaching and start performing" he said, bored and delighted all at once.
Iris looked up for the first time, and her gaze hit the cluster of ordinary students like a kindness and an apology. A first-year near the wall - ink on her fingers, hope too large for her sleeves - caught the look and tried to return it. Kori would have called that moment a punctuation mark.
Keita tapped the fan’s spine against his palm - once. "Agreed" he said at last. "Four on four. Second Bell. Try not to arrive with excuses."
"We don’t collect excuses" Esen said, wide-eyed innocence. "We recycle them."
Keita pivoted. The four second-years drifted past with the air of people leaving a conversation that bored them. Students parted automatically - that old, bad habit of making space for arrogance. As they passed a group of first-years, one of the younger boys tried to flatten himself into a banner. Keita’s fan brushed his sleeve without looking. Follow current novels on N()velFire.net
Iris slowed half a step. "Sorry" she whispered to the boy, so soft only Hikari and the banner heard. Then she hurried to catch her group, silence settling on her shoulders like a uniform.
The corridor stayed breathless a second after they were gone, like applause that didn’t know if it had permission.
"Nice friends" Esen said, bright and furious.
"They aren’t" Feris said mildly. "That’s the problem."
Arashi straightened his cuff as if that were a strategy. "One week" he said. "Keita. White-hair. Machinery. The mage."
"Iris" Hikari said, low. "She likes the first-years. That rumor about the front - it hurt her."
"Noted" Lynea said. She’d already taken out a small notebook and written four names without asking for them.
Keahi blew out a breath through her nose. "We plan" she said. "We don’t posture."
"Obviously" Raizen said. The word didn’t feel like a joke. It felt like a signature.
Behind them the tail of students found its courage again and reattached itself, now taller somehow, now walking with their shoulders a little less apologetic. Someone dared: "You’ll win, right?"
Kori would have said something wicked and inspiring. None of them were Kori. Hikari answered instead. "We’ll try our best" she said, and meant it in the way that makes trying dangerous.
A week. The arena. Second Bell.
Talent versus Experience.